Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Dec. 20 in Washington. / Carolyn Kaster, AP

by By Nicole Gaudiano, Gannett Washington Bureau

by By Nicole Gaudiano, Gannett Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's search for a "dance partner" on "fiscal cliff" negotiations led him to a familiar face.

Talks between McConnell and Democrats had stalled when McConnell called on Vice President Joe Biden to help get things moving.

"The vice president and I have worked together on solutions before, and I believe we can again," McConnell, of Kentucky, said Sunday.

The two talked late into Sunday evening and spoke again as early as 12:45 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. on Monday.

Negotiations moved more quickly with Biden involved. Democrats and Republicans were still talking Monday evening, but a deal was taking shape that would raise taxes on households earning more than $450,000 a year and extend unemployment benefits for more than a year.

"We had everything at an impasse," said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. "Joe Biden sweeps in and they cut a deal -- if they get a deal. You've got to give Biden a little credit."

McConnell and Biden can't claim to have reached a sweeping compromise on the fiscal cliff -- at least not for now. Their agreement would avoid burdening all taxpayers with higher rates, but would postpone solutions to massive spending cuts, the nation's borrowing limit and other issues, Ornstein said.

"The bad news here is that, whatever we've done to avoid the worst-case scenario, we've set up at least one, if not several, additional endgame negotiations, confrontations, potential disaster points in January, February and even beyond," he said.

The massive, automatic spending cuts included in the fiscal cliff resulted from legislation that Biden and McConnell helped negotiate in 2011 to raise the nation's debt limit and avoid a first-ever default.

The two worked down to the wire on that deal after Republicans walked away from deficit-reduction meetings that Biden was leading that spring.

The compromise package cut more than $900 billion over 10 years and created a process that would automatically cut another $1.2 trillion, beginning Tuesday, unless Congress came up with an alternative deficit-cutting plan.

The compromise increased the country's borrowing limit, as the administration wanted, and avoided higher taxes for the wealthy, as Republicans wanted.

Biden and McConnell also worked together in December 2010 in negotiating a deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts through 2012. The final deal gave Republicans the estate-tax specifics they wanted and the tax credits for low-income families sought by Democrats.

Biden, who represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years, served with McConnell for 24 years.

They never served on the same committees, but Biden's trustworthiness and his rapport with conservatives such as GOP Sens. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Jesse Helms of North Carolina earned him a reputation as someone Republicans could bargain with, said former Democratic Sen. Ted Kaufman, Biden's longtime chief of staff in the Senate.

"If you could find a way to negotiate with Thurmond and Helms, you could negotiate with anybody," Kaufman said.

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